


It Will Pass

by tanyart



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-28
Updated: 2011-02-28
Packaged: 2017-10-16 00:07:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/166313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanyart/pseuds/tanyart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mirror, mirror. (Spoilers for Brotherhood)</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Will Pass

Desmond looks into the mirror and stares at it until he can imagine that it’s Altair who is looking back at him.

“It’s not your fault,” he says, but Altair’s haunted expression doesn’t shift. He leans in, laying his forehead against the cool glass, and says again and again, “It’s not your fault. It isn’t. Don’t blame yourself.”

He talks until his breath fogs up the mirror, but the last thing he sees is a small, sad smile, and maybe a tiny nod. It’s strange, to be comforting a person who is long dead, but Desmond can’t ignore the hurt he feels from Altair, the type of pain that won’t go away, even centuries after.

He wipes the mirror, wipes his eyes, and leaves the restroom to lay back down in the Animus.

Later, much later, after they make him go through Ezio’s hidden memories, Desmond finds himself talking to Ezio through the mirror too.

“Not your fault,” he says, even as Ezio stubbornly shakes his head. It takes a while, but the moment Desmond reaches out his hand, Ezio is reaching back, and he cries, quietly, into the cuffs of Desmond’s sleeves.

And maybe he should have expected this. This young and flighty thing when he looks at Lucy, like when Altair takes Adha’s hand in his, or when Ezio waits beneath Cristina’s window, throwing pebbles and whispering and laughing when he scrambles up to meet her. The feelings are similar; this odd, tentative spark of happiness where none should exist. 

And it might take years before Desmond will stop waking up in the middle of the night, sick and tired of carrying the weight of three heartaches, when only one of them is his. He will get up from his bed, stumble into his bathroom and look into the mirror to see his own reflection. He’ll tell himself that it’s not his fault, and that he can’t blame himself forever—and if Altair and Ezio can get pass this, so can he. 

Right now it hurts, but it’ll stop hurting, eventually. He’ll tell himself that it will be alright. It will, it will—

He never stops struggling, but he looks into her eyes and thinks, “I’m sorry, _I’m so sorry_ , Adha. Cristina.  _Lucy_ —“ and plunges the blade into her.


End file.
